FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif. — Hang around John Krafcik long enough and you're bound to hear about the time he passed an automotive legend in a freeway speed duel.
It was in the early 1990s. Krafcik was a midlevel executive at Ford Motor. To hear him tell it, he was barreling down Interstate 94 near Detroit when Bob Lutz, then a top guy at Chrysler and now retired General Motors vice chairman, sped past in a Dodge Spirit R/T. Krafcik gunned his Taurus SHO for a triple-digit battle of automaker machismo. Each passed the other a couple times.
"It just became ridiculous," he says. But the anecdote goes to a larger point he's quick to declare: "I hate being passed."
Lately, as CEO of Hyundai Motor America, it's Krafcik who's been doing all the passing.
PHOTO GALLERY: See photos of Hyundai's vehicles
Krafcik (craf-CHECK) has guided Hyundai from No. 9 in U.S. sales in 2007 to seventh among individual brands through July this year. Sales are up 23.8% so far over the same period in 2009, Autodata reports. His brand just bumped Nissan from Kelley Blue Book's list of top five brands for buyers. Maligned for poor reliability only a few years ago, Hyundai is moving up the ladder to the top tier in quality. Hyundai's breakout, coming even as the automotive industry faced some of its hardest times, has made Krafcik a rising star.
He even was rumored last year to be a candidate to lead GM's revival after bankruptcy. He firmly declines to confirm or deny.
Yet for all his company's recent success, he doesn't come across as brash. Rather, he's cerebral, detail-oriented and self-effacing. He has the build of a committed runner — he puts in at least 5 kilometers three or four days a week on trails near his Orange County, Calif., home — under a mop of prematurely gray hair.
He's an engineer by training, but without nerdiness. He's a salesman, but without swagger.
Hyundai's growth offers an excuse to brag, but Krafcik — who tries to personally handle at least one customer complaint a day — stresses the need for humility.
"We need to stay hungry and never be complacent," he says. "We still have to work so hard."
That's because Krafcik and his South Korean parent company have even more ambitious goals ahead. Having introduced seven new models in 24 months starting in 2004, Hyundai now is repeating the 7/24 cycle.
This one started with a December relaunch of its Tucson crossover, followed by a new generation of its high-volume Sonata sedan. Hyundai is about to launch its first hybrid, a key step toward the goal of a 50-mile-per-gallon average for its lineup by 2025. And its new-to-the-U.S. 2011 Equus will extend the brand into the luxury market and take on the likes of Lexus and Mercedes-Benz.
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